


Who Was Agent Maine

by urbaninja



Series: Everyone Lives [2]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-20
Updated: 2013-07-20
Packaged: 2017-12-20 18:37:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/890524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/urbaninja/pseuds/urbaninja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maine died the day the Meta took his place. The Meta died when he was dragged off a cliff. In the snowy drifts of Sidewinder, a man receives a second chance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who Was Agent Maine

**Author's Note:**

> This fic takes place in my Everyone Lives AU.
> 
> Maine was one of those characters who I wasn’t sure what to do with, and then this idea hit, so I went with it. I’m pretty pleased with the result.
> 
> The amnesia Maine has is Hollywood-type amnesia. The lack of concrete details reflects this. I’ll probably come back to tinker with it later, maybe. I always say that but…
> 
> Beyond that, thanks for reading and I hope that you enjoy it.

When they find him, he is collapsed in a crumpled heap next to what remains of a warthog. The soldiers approach carefully, wary because of the myths they’ve heard of this man. He seems smaller now. Now that he’s broken, defeated. They just need to confirm that he’s dead and this chapter of Project Freelancer can be closed at least.

Instead he twitches, and the soldiers back up in surprise. By all accounts he should be dead but instead, he’s trying to pull himself upright before his arm gives out and he collapses in the snow again. One of the soldiers leans down to check. He’s unconscious but breathing.

“Command, come in. You’re not going to believe this, but…but he’s alive.”

\--

The next time he wakes up he’s in a room that’s wholly unfamiliar to him. He doesn’t remember anything, where he was, what happened to him, who he is really. It’s all in an impenetrable fog. He shifts, trying to get a better look at where he is, see if he can find anything familiar. Nothing in the room, mostly machines and screens making beeping noises, triggers anything until his eyes rest on a suit of armor piled near to where he is lying on a bed. There’s a helmet with a large gold visor staring at him, and he’s suddenly terrified and trying to call out but he can’t. He doesn’t have a voice. 

The sounds of him struggling, and trying to get out of the bed and away from the helmet, despite his broken body, eventually draw attention and a doctor and nurse run in to calm him down.

\--

He spends a lot of time between waking and sleeping. He doesn’t know the extent of his injuries, just that he’s broken in body and mind. Everything hurts and he’s not sure why he’s here but he keeps enduring. Something tells him that he was good at that.

The doctors seem to think he’s out of danger now. They moved him to a smaller, quieter room to continue healing. A nurse looks after him now, and he likes her. She took away the helmet that scared him, and she comes regularly to check up on him. She talks to him while she’s doing it, about whatever’s on her mind, even though he can’t respond. Sometimes it’s about the weekend, sometimes it’s about family troubles, sometimes it’s about nothing at all.

It takes a lot of effort, but he finally manages to smile at her when she starts talking. It hurts when he does. He hasn’t smiled in a long time. She smiles back brightly and says that she hopes he’s not in too much pain today. 

There’s something about her red hair that’s familiar. But that memory is just as lost as the others.

\--

One day he hears people talking outside his room. There’s an accented voice, which brings something back but it sounds wrong. It’s not the one he knew. He’s pretty sure they’re talking about him, but he doesn’t quite understand what they’re saying due to being muffled by the door.

(“He won’t be of any help?”

“No Sir. He has no memory of Project Freelancer as far as we can tell. Any attempts we tried to bring it up to him where met with blank stares. I don’t think he even knows who he is.”

“Very well. We’ll have to left him go. Does he have any surviving family?”

“Not that we’ve found.”

“Well, send him to the care facility then. He’ll be looked after there and he’s owed that much.”)

\--

He doesn’t know how long he’s been in the hospital, but the doctors finally tell him that he can leave. They’re transferring him to a long term care facility, due to his lack of memories. He’ll be able to finish the last few stages of his rehabilitation there. 

The nurse is sad to see him go, but promises to send him flowers from the garden. He’d spent a lot of time looking at them through the window. She mentions the armor as well, telling him it’s in a bag that will be transferred to the facility. He doesn’t have to take it out if he doesn’t want to.

She leans over and kisses him on the cheek and to his surprise he blushes and she laughs. He’s embarrassed at first but soon joins in with his own chuff. He’s going to miss her, and wishes he could have asked her name.

\--

The people at the facility are nice enough. They’re patient with him, letting him learn things for himself. He’s given a small room. It’s not much, but has a kitchen, den, bathroom, and bedroom. They trust him enough to live independently. Indeed, he hasn’t really given anyone a reason not to. Not since the incident with the helmet.

If nothing else, he seems to remember how to take care of himself.

He stores the armor in a closet. He doesn’t plan to look at it.

They show him around the facility, introducing him to a few people, but he doesn’t remember their names.

“Maine?” 

The voice is familiar in the way all his memories are familiar, which is to say not very. But the voice is insistent. 

“Holy cow! It really is you, Maine! Don’t you remember me? It’s Utah!”

“Do you know him, Dillan?” the one who had been giving him the tour asks.

“Yeah, Doctor, I do. We were on that same project. I don’t actually know his real name, but he was Agent Maine when I knew him. Of course, I barely recognized him with all that hair.”

The conversation isn’t making much sense to him, but he unconsciously reaches up to touch his head and is surprised to find hair there. He thinks he might have been bald at one point. He stares hard at Dillan, or Utah, or whoever he is, trying to remember but nothing’s coming.

Still maybe having someone around who knew him might help. He seems nice enough.

He plays with the name around in his head for a bit. Maine. It sounds familiar but he doesn’t know if it’s his name. He’ll hang onto it for now though. It seems to work.

\--

Utah stays nearby most of the time. He keeps an eye on Maine when the doctors can’t, and helps him establish something of a routine.

Utah says he’s been there since the project fell, but that means nothing to Maine. After being injured in that training exercise, there wasn’t much use for him, and as he didn’t have any family, he was living here. He likes it though, it’s easy.

Utah has a garden, where he grows vegetables and a few flowers. He teaches Maine how to look after the plants. Maine finds he likes working in the soil, using his hands for something. Utah is amazed that someone so big can be so deft at picking weeds. The two can work side by side for hours.

Once the vegetables are ripe, Utah promises to cook Maine a big meal, so he can see the results of his hard work.

\--

As he settles into his new life, Maine starts have good days and bad days. 

On the good days, he can focus on what he is doing, working the garden, helping out with some other task, can even find it in himself to be sociable. If he’s in the right frame of mind, he can even handle a game of cards, go fish or old maid. Something easy.

On the bad days, he’s plagued with silence. There’s always been an emptiness in his head that he can’t escape and there are days when it threatens to overwhelm him. He hides in his bedroom, away from people, from Utah, from the armor that still sits in the closet, but when he closes his eyes he can still see that visor staring at him. 

He’s reluctant to tell Utah about it. Utah knows about his past, but they don’t talk about it. Maine’s afraid of who he might have been.

\--

One day, Maine is lying on the couch in his house. He’s spent most of the morning in the garden, and is now taking the opportunity to relax. At least until the door opens. Maine figures it’s Utah, since the man has taken to treating Maine’s place like a second house.

He’s right, but Utah’s not alone. There are two others with him. One with a moustache, and one who’s fairly short. Once again, Maine feels like he should know them. It’s a stronger feeling than with Utah, but his memories are blocked again. They act like they know him, even though he has no clue who they are.

The names sound familiar though. Wyoming and Florida. He’ll try and remember that.

They sit at the table and talk for a while. Or at least, Florida talks. Maine finds himself getting annoyed for reasons he can’t begin to understand why. He ends up catching Wyoming’s eye, and there’s something in his look that makes Maine want to simultaneously trust him and throttle him, but he winds up distracted from that thought because Florida won’t shut up and his hand unconsciously clenches into a fist. Something about that seems to satisfy Wyoming.

“We should probably head out, Butch. It’s getting late.”

A few more words are exchanged as they head out the door. 

“We’ll come again, if you don’t mind,” Florida says. 

“And we are glad to see you alive, old friend.” 

There’s something about Wyoming’s words that seem oddly sincere. Maine is thrown for a loop. There’s a voice in the back of his head telling him they shouldn’t be.

He sends them off with a wave and goes to sit back down on the couch.

For the first time in a long time, he finds himself actively wondering who he was. It’s been on his mind constantly but he got into the habit of pushing the question aside, in favor of focusing on the present. It always seemed safer.

But they, Wyoming and Florida and even Utah knew his past self, and they all seemed genuine (even if they shouldn’t be) about being happy to see him.

There’s a part of him who thinks that he might be able to ask about who he was, but as he remembers the armor in the closet, doubt closes in, and once again, Maine puts those thoughts away for another day.

The flower garden still needed weeding.


End file.
